Cisco

Cisco Systems unveiled a supercharged router called the ASR 9000, which is capable of moving 6.4 terabytes per second of traffic. The router is aimed at service providers with next-generation networks which plan to run bandwidth heavy services such as video, IPTV, mobile broadband, and more. With the explosion of Youtube videos, and other bandwidth-hungry apps, service providers are looking to stay ahead of the bandwidth demand curve. The ASR 9000 hopes to address that need with the ability to support the future "Zettabyte era".

Saw a good article on Enterprise Networking Planet about AutoQoS, a new Cisco IOS command to make provisioning QoS on your router much simpler -- much more plug-n-play. With time-sensitive (latency, jitter) apps such as VoIP, QoS is critical. How simple is turning on AutoQoS? Well, to turn on QoS on your WAN interface, you just type this:

interface Serial0
bandwidth 256
autoqos voip

AutoQoS is a new IOS feature for Cisco routers that Cisco decided to add when it realized it needed to simplify the complexity of QoS for their customers.

Fonality is one of the premiere providers of Asterisk-based IP-PBX solutions. Fonality offers three products: PBXtra, trixbox CE (community edition), and trixbox Pro (commercial/reseller edition). trixbox Pro. which is their commercial edition runs on Fonality's "hardened" PBXtra technology, which Fonality claims has 5 thousand installations and over 325 million calls to date. trixbox Pro is a hybrid-hosted solution, which means you get 24/7 monitoring, phone mobility with no NAT traversal issues, and automatic software updates.

As I hinted last week, I would have some "interesting" news to tell after my visit to Digium's brand new headquarters along with colleagues Greg Galitzine and Dave Rodriguez. Before I get into the MAJOR news being made by Digium, let me cover what else I learned on my trip. It had been 3 years since I last visited Digium down in Huntville, Alabama.

After getting a grand tour of the new Digium building we sat down in a state-of-art boardroom complete with a high-end Polycom IP conferencing unit, theater lighting, and a projector with motorized retractable screen. The boardroom was named the Mark C. Smith Boardroom to honor Mark Smith, who was the founder and chief executive officer of ADTRAN and Mark Spencer's mentor.

So today I get a new report from the Tolly Group stating that the ShoreTel Unified Communications system is significantly more energy efficient than the Cisco Unified Communications Manager. ShoreTel apparently topped Cisco in using less energy to drive VoIP communications in specific large, medium and small enterprise-class scenarios.

Infonetics sent me over a summary of their latest report on the unified communications (UC) market. Infonetics Research reports that the unified communications market, which includes unified messaging and communicator software, jumped 20% sequentially in 2007, following a 19% increase in 2006. Similarly, the IP contact center (IPCC) market grew 24% in 2007, after a whopping 26% increase in 2006. Infonetics' report, Unified Communications and IP Contact Centers, shows that together, UC and IPCC sales grew 22% to hit $1.05 billion worldwide in 2007, and healthy growth is expected through at least 2011.

Interestingly, Microsoft jumped to first place in worldwide communicator revenue market share in 2007.

Could it be - with ShoreTel continuing to provide PBX solutions - that the rumors I reported about them nearly a year ago were false? Is it now clear that Rich's sources that sparked this article were wrong?

Shoretel seems to be going strong. In fact, while this article was written a long time ago, but thanks to its high ranking on search engines, it still sparks the occasional new comment from avid Shoretel fans.

You can read the comments below for other people's thoughts. There are many avid fans of the Shoretel platform that have come to Shoretel's defense.

According to a new study by analyst firm Infonetics Research, Cisco and Microsoft are locked in a "battle of the titans" for the unified communications (UC) market, with both vendors currently favored by buyers as Unified Messaging and Communicator suppliers. As almost an aside, the news release on the study says, "Avaya and Nortel also fare well as current UC suppliers." I'm sure Avaya and Nortel are thinking -- and to quote Rodney Dangerfield, "I get no respect."

According to Infonetics, "It's no secret that Microsoft is predicting the death of the PBX, to be replaced by a software-based communication approach like OCS 2007; but we didn't find many people convinced that this is yet the way to go. What we're seeing instead is companies keeping their IP PBXs, and layering unified communications applications on top. Microsoft is seeing early success by leveraging their leadership in e-mail messaging and desktop environments.